


That Hollywood Dust

by skyline



Series: Heart-Shaped Wreckage [2]
Category: Big Time Rush
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Hit List AU, James is a douchebag, M/M, Sequel, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-12 13:43:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5668123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James stole his songs. James smiled that brilliant, unbelievable smile at him and then he stabbed Kendall in the gut. And the worst part is how the visceral pain of it all is clouded by boysenberry sweetness, this thin strain of hope that spikes straight through his heart. </p><p>James is okay. He’s alive and well and successful. </p><p>There aren’t any pictures of him online – he hasn’t done any live performances or given any interviews, yet. Even his album art is ambiguous, a graphic overlaid by his new name in huge, dangerously twisted font. But it’s James.</p><p>No one else can sing like that, can spin out melodies that resonate in Kendall’s bones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I reeeeally didn't want to post any more chaptered fic like ever again. But I hate leaving ELLLiNYC all unfinished, because it was supposed to be this great big epic with this story, all these successive chapters, wound into it. A gigantic Big Bang of a oneshot. 
> 
> I failed in that, but I've had the rest laying around for so long. It's time to post. But since it's still a bit incomplete, the posting shall occur in chapters. This fandom died like three years ago, so I'm trusting no one will mind.

Katie wants Kendall to sue.

Logan’s all in favor of tearing someone apart with his bare hands.

Neither option is very realistic – Kendall’s always been sloppy about his sheet music, so much so that he didn’t care that any of it was missing, much less think to patent it prior to the fact. And Logan? He’s about as intimidating as a baby panda bear. If he tried to punch somebody, he’d probably break a bone or three.

Besides, neither Katie nor Logan know who to aim their lawyers and fists at.

Kendall does. He queued up the song on his ancient, decrepit laptop the moment he got home from work. Upon a second listening, he knew that angel-voice, understood exactly who perpetrated this absolute shitshow, because honestly, who else could it be?

The internet says his name is _Jimmy_.

One word, no surname, like Tricky, Example, or Sting. If Kendall had to choose a nom-de-plume to sing under, he probably would have gone with something a little less juvenile – he always liked the name Shane – but James is lacking in creativity.

Obviously.

The entire iTunes catalogue for his unreleased album – preorder now! – reads with titles Kendall thought up. He’s missing nearly thirty songs in total, enough for two whole LPs, if Jimmy’s record company dubs them passable.

Which they might.

It’s with a weird sense of pride that Kendall reads music blogs and magazine articles and artist-watch columns, all assigning Jimmy with critical acclaim. _Broadway, Here I Come_ is the hit single of the summer, apparently, what with its combination of magnificent vocals, dark turn of phrase, and clever backbeats.

Kendall tries not to resent the music match up. He wrote the song as a ballad when he was in a dark place. It sounds better with the dubstep raining down between lyrics, the synth a sharp contrast to the raw honesty of James’s voice.

James’s voice singing _Kendall’s_ song.

The first song he ever polished up, actually. A song about living, and also, ironically, a song about dying. Kendall wonders if James recognized what a filthy liar Kendall is, there in those lyrics, penned down directly before the first and last time he ever OD’ed.

He streams it again, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to figure out what it is that he’s supposed to do.

Betrayal is a sickness that coats his throat. It tastes of stale coffee, mucus, and something bile-sharp.

James stole his songs. James smiled that brilliant, unbelievable smile at him and then he stabbed Kendall in the gut. And the worst part is how the visceral pain of it all is clouded by boysenberry sweetness, this thin strain of hope that spikes straight through his heart.

James is okay. He’s alive and well and _successful_.

There aren’t any pictures of him online – he hasn’t done any live performances or given any interviews, yet. Even his album art is ambiguous, a graphic overlaid by his new name in huge, dangerously twisted font. But it’s James.

No one else can sing like that, can spin out melodies that resonate in Kendall’s bones.

At night, he dreams about Los Angeles. About the fanned leaves of palm trees and the glare of the sun. About walking on asphalt so hot it bubbles beneath his sneakers, gluey and sticking. Palm trees line white washed walkways, milling with pretty, plasticine people who wear faces that change and change and change.

In those dreams, New York City is a dark, dangerous, seductive place, distant city lights he can see on the horizon, past the looming shapes of bruised purple foothills, and it doesn’t even make sense, but dream logic never does.

Kendall wakes up sweaty and panting, even though nothing terrible happened.

He can feel tar coating his heels and a decision hardening his heart.

* * *

 

“Baby, darling, sugarpie, lollipop,” Kendall sweetalks his ancient laptop. “Get me to LA. You’ll like it there. It’s sunny. And stuff.” He strokes the casing. “Don’t you want to be warm?”

In point of fact, the computer’s already super-hot, reaching that nova point where it’s close to shutting down in protest. Kendall hates being poor.

“Hitting it isn’t going to help,” Logan comments idly from the couch. “What are you even trying to do? You’ve been mumbling to yourself for the better part of an hour.”

“Trying to find naked pictures of your mom,” Kendall shoots back, ignoring the honest question in favor of watching the submission form finally go through. He spins the broken computer chair he and Logan dug out of a dumpster a few months ago with an accompanying screech of metal.

This is it, Kendall thinks. This is going to work.

He manages to evade Logan’s watchful eye for the rest of the night, and the night after that, right on up until the end of the week, which finds him stuffing a duffel bag full of dirty jeans and dubiously clean underwear.

He ends up packing more than he can carry and has to rearrange the sloppily folded detritus of his life three times before it all fits. Panting and wheezing, Kendall shoves the bag down the ladder of his loft, narrowly missing Logan’s head when it somersaults to the floor.

Logan’s gaze flicks from the bag to Kendall’s guilty-face. Archly, he asks, “Running away?”

“More like a vacation.” Steeling himself for the admission, Kendall follows the bag on down the ladder, albeit more slowly. “I’m going to LA.”

“For serious?” Logan shoves a few books about cadaver dissection off the couch and plants himself on the empty cushion, posture rigid.

“Is that bad?”

“Depends.” Logan purses his lips, the briefest disapproval apparent somewhere between his jaw and his eyes. “Are you going to visit Katie? She’ll like that. But are you sure you can afford it?”

He’s eyeing the bag that nearly brained him, deeply suspicious. Kendall can’t help his guilt. Still.

“What are you, my mom?” He retorts, with little to no bite. “I hear LA’s nice this time of year.”

“It’s beautiful year long. Says so on the tourism commercials. Kendall-“

“I’m leaving tonight.”

“What? Why?” Logan squawks.

“Because that’s what my plane ticket says.” Kendall considers lying, except after his intimate tryst with pain killers, he made a rushed engagement with honesty that he’s not quite ready to break. He adds, “I’m not going for Katie.”

Logan blinks. He reclines back into the sofa. Then he blinks again.

“I don’t compute.”

“Logie-Bear, I’ve got a dream. A song writing dream. And, uh. I think it’s time to pursue that.” There, that’s not lying. It’s creative speaking. Kind of.

“Backtrack,” Logan orders, voice going sharp. His intelligent eyes track Kendall’s every nervous twitch. “Is this a one way trip?”

“No! _No_. Of course not.” Kendall shifts uncomfortably, the hinges of the old office chair creaking ominously. “It’s, ah. Open ended, maybe.”

“Maybe? You don’t know?”

“I’ll be back!”

“When?”

Damn him and his brain. Kendall says, “A couple of weeks. A month, tops.”

He doesn’t know how long it will take to find James. So sue him.

“You really didn’t buy a return ticket!”

Logan looks horrified, like Kendall’s grown a second, less attractive head or something. This is really not going as well as he hoped.

“That is…beside the point. I’ll buy you a souvenir. What do you want?”

“Half a minute of sanity from you. Why LA?” Lips curling into a snarl, Logan bites out, “What’s going on? Is this about your song?”

Kendall doesn’t know how to avoid looking shifty, so instead he spins himself into the old computer chair. The disadvantage of this move is that the chair squeals somewhat horrifically, protesting his every movement.

It’s pretty conspicuous.

“ _Kendall_ ,” Logan intones.

“It’s my song,” Kendall replies, petulant as a child. He doesn’t say songs, because then he would have to tell Logan that there is an entire album of his shit about to drop. He knows that his best friend is going to find out about the James connection eventually, but eventually will probably be a better time if Kendall is all the way across the country when it arrives.

Logan softens. “I know that, and that’s why I think you should listen to Katie. She’s good at kneecapping and lawsuits-“

“She doesn’t know where to aim her baseball bat.” Scoffing, Kendall says, “And what is she really going to do, sue? You know me, Loganator. I never patented anything. I don’t even have proof that I wrote the damn thing.”

“People have heard you sing it. At the bar, and-“

“That doesn’t mean anything. I have no way to prove that I wasn’t scamming off this Jimmy guy, or vice versa. All the legalese in the world isn’t going to help.” Kendall’s shoulders slump.

“Moving to LA will?” Logan cocks an eyebrow.

“It might.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.” He eyes Kendall suspiciously. “Are you-“

Kendall holds up a halting hand. “Don’t even say it.”

“I worry about you.”

“I know. But this has nothing to do with – I’m okay. I swear, I’m okay.”

Logan says, “I believe you,” but the way he lowers his eyes is telling.

“No you don’t,” Kendall says flatly. He leans back in the chair, the joints protesting loudly.

“So you go out there. Then what are you going to do?”

“Who says I have to do anything?”

“You’re not going to take legal action. You’re going to…what, talk to him? And then, when he refuses to back down, then what are you going to do? Let him get away with it?”

Kendall doesn’t have anything to say to that. If James won’t see reason – which is an actual option, knowing James – then he doesn’t have much recourse, does he.

“You can’t do that. You can’t let him get away with it.”

“Watch me.”

Logan glowers. “I hate him.”

“Who?”

“Whoever did this to you.” In that moment, Logan pauses, dark eyes searching. “It was James, wasn’t it?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Who else had access? Screw it, who else would you fly across the country for? It was James, and you want to forgive him.”

“I don’t. I mean. I won’t.” Kendall pauses. “But he doesn’t deserve to die, Logan. That’s overkill.”

“He deserves a swift kick in the balls.” That, at least, Kendall can agree with. Logan squeezes his eyes shut. “At the very least, tell me you’re staying with her?”

“Who?”

“Your sister!”

“Oh. Sure. Obviously.” Kendal glares at his shoes and tries very hard to look like somebody who informed their baby sister when they were planning a visit.

Logan drops the subject, because he hates conflict, and besides, Kendall’s trustworthy. Ish. Instead he switches tack to something Kendall can actually handle talking about. “What about next month’s rent?”

Kendall digs a creased envelope from his pants. “Here.”

“Wow.” Logan stares, not taking it. “You really thought of everything, didn’t you?”

As a child, Kendall was taught that pain is fleeting, to grin and bear it. So that’s what he does, even now that he knows pain is a constant, an omnipresent thing. It’s unshakeable, undeniable. He’ll never be free of it.

Logan too, he knows that. He’s looking at Kendall like this entire conversation is breaking his heart, but what’s worse, it’s like…he’s used to it. He’s used to Kendall disappointing him.

Kendall can’t handle that. He’s up, off the chair and on the couch before Logan can even say anything else. He throws the envelope on top of the pile of books on the floor and crawls up Logan, wondering if maybe he can actually make his way inside him.

It’s bad and it’s wrong but that doesn’t stop him from whispering, “I’ll be back,” against Logan’s lips, from palming his cock until he’s hard and leaking through the front of his jeans. And if Logan is still staring at Kendall like he’s the biggest liar in the universe, well, he stops when Kendall wraps his fingers around his dick, stroking him long and easy. He punctuates every move of his hand with tiny pecks on the lips, coaxing Logan into forgetting this, into forgetting the fact that Kendall is such an unforgiveable jackass.

Logan forgives too easily, crying out Kendall’s name when he comes.

And Kendall, he takes his hand off Logan’s cock, staring into his big brown eyes. But before he can say anything – something optimistic and encouraging, and probably a lie – Logan says, “You’re going to leave me behind.”

“Logan-“

“Don’t. Just don’t.”

So Kendall doesn’t.

* * *

 

“Are you okay?” His mother shrills over the phone, drowning out the monotonous flight attendant requesting that passengers Paulson report to gate forty two.

Kendall winces, reduced to a mental age of all about three in the face of his mom’s abrupt interrogation. Lies spring unbidden to his lips - _No, I didn’t break the vase. It was Katie. No, I didn’t crash the car. It was Logan. –_ before he chases them away. “I’m fine. How are you?”

His mom steamrolls over his careful words. “If you’re fine, why did Logan call me, all in a panic?”

“Panic is Logan’s middle name. Hyphenated with Worrywart and Hysterical.”

“Kendall.”

“Mom. Hi.”

She sighs. “Hi, honey. California?”

“I am an adult.”

“I’ve yet to see evidence of that. Will you visit Katie?”

“If I don’t, she’ll strangle me with my own entrails.”

“Have you told her you’re coming?”

“She loves surprises.”

“Like a shotgun to the head.” His mom is quiet for a few beats. “You could come home.”

Kendall jostles his bag up his shoulder. “I could. I miss you.”

“You too, sweetie.”

They talk until he has to board, avoiding anything awkward or weird, because that is how people treat Kendall now; like he is a fragile, broken thing. Kendall takes advantage of that as much as he can, because he doesn’t want his mom to know. Not about James, or the song, or what he’s doing or what he feels.

He hangs up on her as the plane’s about to take off, watching as the asphalt blurs into the dying grass, black-brown-green, until it all turns the color of James’s eyes. The stars spin dizzyingly from the sky and then.

He’s on his way.

* * *

 

This is how Kendall feels about Hollywood.

Nothing has history, all of it is fake. At its birth, the city was called El Pueblo de la Reyna de los Angeles. Now it is something else entirely, something that makes Kendall think of haunted hills, white dresses and the Manson murders, Indian burial grounds and everything decay.

Beyond the hills, California retains an element of something rugged, dormant under the heat and the bikini tops and the sugar sweet smiles that hide feral teeth. New York reaches to the sky, an entire city of people trying to touch the stars, but in California, it’s twisted – they want to be the stars. They want to burn so bright no one will forget their name.

Kendall hates that, from the moment he gets off the plane.

And he hates himself too, because he does not do the thing that he promised Logan and his mom he would do. He doesn’t go straight to Katie’s apartment, where she lives with her fancy boyfriend.

Instead the place he finds himself at sits in a courtyard of Spanish tile, an old, weathered fountain sitting dry at the center. Kendall stands outside the teal-painted door, breathing in and breathing out. Then he knocks.

No one answers.

He tries again. Still nothing.

He taps out a pattern of knocks that sounds vaguely like one of his stolen songs. He makes it to the first chorus before the door swings open, shocking the fuck out of him – by that point he was carrying out the rhythm for the pure joy of his own entertainment.

The girl standing in the door frame scrutinizes him up and down, contorting her face like she doesn’t especially love what she sees. The sickly yellow of the hall light bathes the girl’s face in strange, angular cuts of light when she announces, “Mmm, no.”

Then she slams the door in his face.

Kendall processes several things right then. The first being that the girl was cute.

The second being that he really hates having doors slammed in his face. He pounds on the door, fervently hoping the whole rickety thing won’t splinter under his hand. “Hey! Hey! You can’t do that. I’m your renter!”

The door swings back open. Hot girl peers back out of him, dark eyes slitted. “You? You’re not a girl. I specifically requested a girl on Craigslist. That’s the entire reason I’m not an Air BnB.”

“Uh. I already paid you.”

“No refunds.” She starts to close the door, but Kendall wedges his foot between it and the frame.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Oh, sassy. I like that.” The girl swings the door back wide. “You’re really Kendall Knight?”

“I really, really am.” Kendall is tired. The flight was long. And all he wants is the tiny, child sized bed that he was promised he could sleep on for a month. “Please don’t make me go to a hotel. I can’t afford it.”

She sighs heavily. “Fine. I’m Mercedes. You know that. I guess you can come in.”

Half of Mercedes’s apartment clearly came from an Urban Outfitters, but Kendall refrains from telling her that, dodging around metal lanterns with punched star holes in the hallway, the entire place scented like strawberry daiquiri scented candles and something muskier, like oak.

The living room is nicer than his place with Logan, starting with the coffee table made of reclaimed driftwood and ending with the flat screen TV. It’s nicer, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. He misses New York like a punch to the gut.

Mercedes gestures around, saying, “Kitchen there. Bathroom, there. Your room, there. No parties. No mess. No noise. I need my Zen.” Every little punch of her finger is emphasized in the mosaic of mirrors she’s got hanging on her walls, her tiny frown flickering from every angle.

Kendall doesn’t anticipate getting in her hair any more than he has to.

He says, “This will be fine.”

Mercedes harrumphs, but she doesn’t argue.

* * *

 

The first thing Kendall does, before sightseeing or looking up Katie or even finding out anything about James is track down the book of postcards James stole the yawning bear cub from.

It’s called Breaking Bad News With Baby Animals and features such inspiring messages as a duckling with the words, “Grandma’s Dead,” or a puppy that declares, “Mommy Spent Your College Funds On Crack.”

He has a real moment of appreciation for the innovation of mankind, as well as its ability to shy away from confrontation with stirring levels of dickishness.

Which doesn’t mean he’s discouraged from adopting James’s tactics. It’s not hard to track down Jimmy’s address, knowing his real name and all. The song is popular, but he’s not A list yet. Kendall finds him in an apartment building downtown, with a doorman who isn’t paying as much attention as he should.

Kendall stands in front of the solid white apartment door for a long, long time, considering knocking. Instead he tapes the cutest, fluffiest baby seal to Jimmy’s front door, the picture emblazoned with the words, “I’m Going To Fuck Your Shit Up.”

He figures it adequately conveys the message.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “A lesser man would be mighty uncomfortable in that many sequins,” Mercedes agrees, throwing her legs across Kendall’s lap. She balances her beer between her pale thighs and asks, “Is that your boy?”
> 
> “I don’t have a boy.”
> 
> “You have a boy.” She makes a derisive sound. “You didn’t come out to LA with your sad eyes and your beat up guitar to be famous, so you must be here for a person. And I’ve been walking around in my lingerie for days; you’ve barely batted an eye. Thus, you’ve got – well, him.”
> 
> There are so many things wrong with her statement that Kendall isn’t sure where to begin, so he starts with what he feels is the most obvious. “I’m not gay.”
> 
> “Honey.”
> 
> “I’m bi,” he insists adamantly. “And you’re not my type.”
> 
> She tosses her hair, every inch of her haughty. “I’m everyone’s type. You’re just in love and can’t see it.”

Mercedes is not Logan.

For one, Kendall doesn’t give her pity handjobs.

Alternately, she doesn’t put up with even an ounce of his bullshit. “Dishes. Now.”

She’s standing in the doorframe of his rented bedroom, arms crossed and glowering. Kendall would swear that her eyes are glowing red, to match the ornate kimono she’s got wrapped around her tight little body. Not that Kendall’s looking or anything. He enjoys having all his man parts right where he grew them.

“Now’s not a great time,” Kendall replies, because he’s nothing if not brave. He scribbles over a line in the ratty, ancient notebook he dragged across the country with him; the twist of phrase isn’t working, making the lyrics too melodramatic.

“Now is the best time if you’re interested in surviving another day.” Mercedes purses her lips. “You are the laziest roommate I’ve ever had.”

“I’m starting to feel like you’ve never had a roommate before. Or friends,” Kendall mutters, because she’s both scary and mean.

Mercedes rolls her eyes. “Oh, like you’re doing so well on that front, Mister Never-Leaves-the-House.”

She steps into the room, making a play for his notebook. Kendall’s still got hockey reflexes; he dodges easily, rolling onto the other side of the bed. That doesn’t stop her. Mercedes is a dog with a bone, now.

Once she’s successfully got the notebook in one clawed hand, she begins flipping through the pages, while Kendall rubs his newly bruised ribs. “You fight dirty.”

“You fight like a girl,” she shoots back. Then she holds the notebook aloft and asks, “So is this why you’re here? You want to go into music?”

Kendall frowns. “That’s private property, you know.”

“You’re sleeping on my private property.”

“I’m paying you to do that!”

“Fine.” She leaves the room for a second, only to return and toss a nickel towards his forehead. After, she begins rifling through his songs again. “These are good, you know” she says begrudgingly. “You might not be as much of an idiot as I thought.”

On the bed, Kendall crosses his legs. “You’re terrible at compliments.”

“I don’t give them out very often.” Mercedes perches on the comforter, the red kimono opening to show just enough thigh that Kendall knows better than to look. “Are you going to interview at any of the labels?”

“No.”

“Are you going to do anything at all, the entire time you’re here?” She asks archly.

That’s a valid question. Kendall’s been trying to figure out how he should go about approaching James for ages. Or at least a week. The postcard might have done its part, but it’s not like he left a return address on the back, letting James know he should seek Kendall out at Mercedes’s. He’s not sure what his next move is, but in the meantime, yeah, it wouldn’t hurt to do something.

“I’ll go be a tourist tomorrow. Will _that_ make you happy?”

In a huff, she replies, “Maybe if you do the dishes tonight.”

“Fine. I give. You win!”

“Always do,” Mercedes allows. Then, hesitantly, she adds, “I was going to watch The Bachelor afterwards. If you want to join.”

Kendall considers it. “You might need to get me drunk for that.”

“One beer. That’s all you get.”

“Milady, you have yourself a deal.”

* * *

 

The next morning, Kendall wakes up to a stack of tourist-type maps and a bus schedule laid out on the nightstand. The sun is bright, the breeze gently battering a set of chimes hanging in the courtyard, and okay, yeah. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to go outside.

He spends the day wending his way through Hollywood. He steps on names etched into stars and shoves through a crowd of character actors at Grauman’s that remind him of the bustle of Times Square. He gets fro-yo around the corner, needing a respite from too many humans before he hops in a tour bus that takes him on a loop-de-loop through canyons and hills, bustling with the scent of crushed jacaranda blossoms and fragrant eucalyptus trees.

The next day he heads over to Santa Monica in a rental car, the crash and the thunder of waves on the wrong side of the continent rattling his spinal column and pounding in his head.

He thinks about riding the Ferris Wheel, but it’s depressing to do it alone. Instead he watches a sea lion swim solo at the end of a pier slathered with fish guts and blood, and he wonders how a state in the same country can feel so far away from home.

* * *

 

On stage, James is electric. His voice rolls over the crowd, strong enough that Kendall isn’t sure he needs the amps that shadow his choreography like great, hulking beasts. It’s his first televised appearance, on a talk show that Kendall’s never watched before. He kept it on mute for most of the host’s part. But this, this was worth tuning in for. Kendall’s songs on James’s lips take on color and richness, an intensity that quavers beneath his ribcage even after James has let the last note die in his throat.

He is exactly what he wanted to be, a super nova, unstoppable and fierce. His happiness breaks Kendall’s heart.

Kendall refuses to let Mercedes see. “Could he be wearing something flashier?”

“A lesser man would be mighty uncomfortable in that many sequins,” Mercedes agrees, throwing her legs across Kendall’s lap. She balances her beer between her pale thighs and asks, “Is that your boy?”

“I don’t have a boy.”

“You have a boy.” She makes a derisive sound. “You didn’t come out to LA with your sad eyes and your beat up guitar to be famous, so you must be here for a person. And I’ve been walking around in my lingerie for days; you’ve barely batted an eye. Thus, you’ve got – well, _him_.”

There are so many things wrong with her statement that Kendall isn’t sure where to begin, so he starts with what he feels is the most obvious. “I’m not gay.”

“ _Honey_.”

“I’m bi,” he insists adamantly. “And you’re not my type.”

She tosses her hair, every inch of her haughty. “I’m everyone’s type. You’re just in love and can’t see it.”

“Huh, that’s odd.”

“What is?”

“He-“ Kendall jabs his finger at the television screen. “-is making me lose my faith in love. I never want to be vulnerable like that again. So there.”

Mercedes props her hands on her knees and leans in close, until Kendall can feel her breath on his ear. “Listen up. I’mma tell you a thing.” Lowering her voice, she murmurs, “A man who wears that many sequins doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing with his life.”

She’s got earnest eyes under all that makeup, the cinnamon-honey color fringed by thick lashes, all one hundred and fifteen pounds of her deadly-serious, willing Kendall to just, _believe_ or whatever.

He wonders if she’s always been like this – so insanely determined not to be wrong.

As a child, Mercedes was small and sun-burned and covered in sand, her hair white-blonde from too much time spent outside, alone. Kendall knows because she has a picture framed, hanging on the wall just inside the right wall on her bedroom, and something sad exists inside her tiny gap-toothed smile. He doesn’t ask what it is because he doesn’t know how, and that’s the same reason he doesn’t ask about this, about why she’s so convinced she’s right.

Because he’s never had a roommate who wasn’t Logan.

He misses Logan.

“What does it even matter? Maybe I’m in love with him, maybe I’m just deeply in lust. Whatever. No big deal.”

“New York City is about eighty zillion miles that way.” Mercedes jerks her thumb behind her, nonplussed. “If you came all this way to stew in self-denial, then be my guest and _leave_.” She heaves herself up off the couch and says, “Now make yourself presentable before my dad gets here.” She cocks her head to the side and says, “By the way, my dad’s coming to dinner.”

“Thanks for mentioning it,” Kendall replies dryly, glancing down at his stained t-shirt. “Your enthusiasm about the prospect is overwhelming. Rough relationship?”

“His new girlfriend is half my age and also a class A bitch,” Mercedes replies flatly.

Kendall doesn’t know how to respond to that in a way that will get Mercedes to allow him to continue breathing, so he changes the subject. “I left him a note.”

“My dad?”

“Him.” He jerks his head towards the TV.

Mercedes pauses. Then she says, “A note.”

“Ja- Jimmy.” Kendall gestures widely towards the now ending talkshow. “I left him a note, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Sending a text was too impersonal for you?” Mercedes goggles at him. “How do you know he even got the note?”

“I left it on his front door.”

“Oh, well then, obviously.” She sneers, her pretty lips curled too tightly. Then she shakes out her hair and says, “If you want to get his attention, we need to get you out there. Go to the same parties he goes to. Hit the same bars he likes.”

“And I’m supposed to know what those are how? I’ve been here two weeks.”

Mercedes cocks a smile that’s near predatory. “I can help you out with that. I’ve got…connections.”

Kendall swallows. “I’m scared. You know that you’re a scary person, right?”

“It’s part of my charm, darling.” She takes a swig of her beer and then says, “Wear something pretty. I’m going to pretend you’re my boyfriend and piss my father off.”

“I’m not your pet.”

“Could have fooled me, Knight.” She pads through the living room, beer bottle swinging from her delicate fingers by the neck. When she disappears into her bedroom, the only thing she leaves behind is the vaguest hint of Versace and disdain.

* * *

 

Dinner is not a thing that Kendall enjoys. For a variety of reasons, starting with the fact that his sister is there.

His sister is there, and mad at him, and dating a man who is closer to the grave than the cradle, so that’s a thing that’s extremely gross and off-putting, outside of her anger. And she is really, really angry.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me you were in California?” She screams, brandishing a very large and very heavy vase of Mercedes’s in one hand, because Kendall’s life is filled with terrifying women.

“I take it you know each other?” Mercedes sniffs. She’s got the brightest, fakest smile plastered on her face, and her dad – the crypt keeper – is watching the three of them with an air of fond, if not befuddled, amusement. Kendall vaguely wonders if he has dementia.

It was all going so well until Mercedes deigned to open the door, and there was Katie in her towering stilettos and no-fuss business suit. Kendall nearly didn’t recognize her; she’s had a haircut since her last visit to New York, and the stress of her job is putting creases in the corners of her eyes that are far, far too deep for a girl that’s barely legal.

Her internship is definitely overworking her.

“Put the vase – no, Katie, put the vase down!” Kendall cowers, trying to avoid possible trajectories in the event she actually does throw it. He has important questions to ask, like why his baby sister is dating an octogenarian, but first he wants to save his life.

“I. Am. So. Mad. At. You,” she grits out, and Kendall is reasonably certain her heels make her as tall as he is, which is in no way fair.

“That’s…probably a reasonable reaction. But homicide is not.” Carefully, he attempts to extract the vase from his little sister’s fingers. She clings to it for a beat longer than he’d like, but eventually lets it go.

“So.” Mercedes says, before the tension really has time to settle. “You’re related to Trampy Spice.”

Katie makes a play for the vase again. Kendall clutches it possessively to his chest. “You’re not helping.”

“Why are you here?” Katie snaps at Kendall, ignoring Mercedes in a way that is truly impressive. Mercedes does not seem like a person who is used to being ignored.

“Felt like a vacation,” Kendall tries, albeit meekly enough that nobody in the room believes him. Least of all himself.

“He’s stalking someone,” Mercedes offers. She is clearly an agent of chaos and needs to be stopped. “Also, by the by, daddy, this is Kendall Knight. We’re dating now.”

“That can be fixed,” Mercedes’s father says in a very serene, very creepy voice.

“Stalking?” Katie talks over the murder-vibes. Her dark eyes grow sharp. “Is this about your music? That guy who stole your songs?”

Understanding dawns in Mercedes’s eyes, connecting the dots between Jimmy’s concert and the lyrics in Kendall’s old notebook. She says, “I take it back. You _are_ an idiot.”

“Don’t call my brother an idiot,” Katie yells.

“Keep it down, huss. I’ve got neighbors.” Mercedes cross her arms, every inch of her belligerent. Then she sighs and says, “Kendall, this is my dad. Arthur Griffin. He’s the CEO of RCM CBT Globalnet Sanyoid. They own Rocque Records.”

She lifts her eyebrows at Kendall like, _I told you I have connections_.

“Charmed.” Arthur watches Kendall like he is a rodent, and okay, Kendall might have underestimated this guy, because CEOs definitely do not have degenerative mental diseases. “Are we eating, anytime soon, muffin? Or are we going to keep watching all of…this?”

He waves a dismissive hand in Katie and Kendall’s general direction. Mercedes rolls her eyes and takes his arm. “Why don’t you help me check the oven.”

“I hate cooking,” he objects, loudly.

“Yeah, well. I hate your pre-teen sugar baby, but that didn’t stop you from bringing her.” She tugs her dad away, throwing Kendall a look that clearly indicates he owes her one.

Katie frowns.

Kendall figures the onus is on him to start, so he does it gallantly, by stating, “Wow, your new boyfriend’s a prick.”

“Yeah, well, your girlfriend isn’t exactly my cup of tea.”

“I’m not dating her.”

“Good. You’d break Logan’s heart.” Suspiciously, Katie continues, “Does Logan even know you’re out here?”

“I’m not dating Logan, either, Katie.” Kendall bites his lower lip. “He knows. He’s not happy.”

“I can imagine.”

“That’s because it’s easy to imagine. Logan is eternally grumpy,” Kendall jokes, but it falls flat.

Katie is staring at him with the kind of concern he’s religiously avoided since he quit hockey, like Kendall can’t handle life’s hard knocks. It’s not fair. He’s the big brother. He’s not the one who should feel like a child under her scrutiny.

“Did you really come out here because of that Jimmy douche? I told you, we can sue.” She eyes him, hands perched on her hips. “But you don’t want to, do you?”

“Katie. I know him.”

“That makes this all ten million times worse! I caught his guest spot earlier. He’s going to be huge, Kendall.”

Kendall shrugs, bizarre pride mingling with bile in his throat. He chooses to change the subject, pointing his chin defiantly towards the kitchen. “What’s with Moses?”

“He’s nice.”

“He’s old,” he replies flatly. “And a CEO. You’re probably eighty nine billionth in a long line of pretty, young interns.”

“Faith is important,” Katie retorts, glancing at Griffin. He’s moving around the kitchen in Mercedes’s footsteps, a puzzled smile gracing his face while she appears to just be yelling.

“You have faith in him?” Kendall wrinkles his nose.

She shakes her head. “I have faith in myself, Kendall. It doesn’t matter who I date; they won’t define me. Right now, I’m just…having fun.”

Shuddering, Kendall says, “That is most revolting visual I’ve ever experienced.”

“Live with it, punk.” She reaches out and ruffles his hair, which is a thing she can do in her towering shoes. “I am still brilliantly angry with you.”

“I am still incredibly repulsed by you,” he quips back. “Get through dinner?”

“Get through dinner,” she agrees, with the kind of resigned solidarity that comes from years and years and years of awkward family dinners, handling their mom and her poor choice in stepfathers.

Mercedes, however, doesn’t plan on letting anything go easily. Once she’s got them seated at the Urban Outfitters layout that is her dining room table, she starts in on Kendall. “Jimmy stole your songs, huh?”

“Jimmy.” Arthur brightens, breaking a warm, buttery roll apart in his hands. Mercedes is prissily refraining from starch. She eyes her dad’s bread like its existence is a personal affront. “I like him. He’s got pizzazz.”

“He caught the show with me,” Katie explains. “Scouting out the competition.”

“Yeah, how does that work? You’re at Colossal, he’s head of Rocque Records…”

“Our romance is star-crossed,” Arthur say solemnly. Kendall gags on his peas. Mercedes does too, albeit much more loudly. “Much like in Jimmy’s songs.”

Mercedes shakes her head. “Those songs are about idealized love. No one actually experiences that.”

“Then why are they so resonant?” Katie challenges, skillfully evading the part where her elderly boy toy just made Kendall’s hard wrought sheet music all about banging his baby sister.

Kendall’s still the one that answers. They’re his songs, after all.

“Because it feels like that. Even if an entire relationship is a sham, it can still hit you so hard that your throat closes up.” He takes a deep breath and adds, “Nine tenths of a relationship are in your head, that’s why when it ends, you come out shattered.”

Mercedes scoffs, but she doesn’t argue. Katie is looking at Kendall like maybe she wants to lock him away in a room somewhere and throw away the key – to protect him – and Arthur?

He’s too busy dividing his chicken from his vegetables on his plate to even pay attention.

* * *

 

It takes him three more days, five nagging calls from Katie, and a firm, actual kick in the butt from Mercedes to get Kendall to trek back to James’s apartment. He sneaks in past the doorman again, which is seriously just not a thing he should be able to do; James _needs_ better security.

Then he wonders why he’s so damned worried about whether James is going to get strangled to death by an overzealous fan when the dirtbag fucked him over so badly.

That’s right. There’s the anger he needs.

It wells up in his stomach, unspooling with a lick of flame. Kendall squares his shoulders and pounds on James’s front door, ready to give the guy a piece of his mind.

Of course, it’s a little harder than he figured on once the door swings back and James is there. He looks like a human-sized version of a Ken Doll, meticulously coiffed. But he smells like James, like the guy who made Kendall sob obscenities into his pillow while he moved inside of him, the spicy scent of his cologne wafting through the doorframe.

Kendall has to bite back a curse, all his other words dying on his lips.

James blinks at him, leonine eyes narrowed, almost a bit scared. He says, “Now who’s the stalker?”

“Still you, Princess.” Kendall shoulders past him and into the apartment before James can even try to object.

It’s nice. There’s a white leather couch and neon pop art prints. Probably originals. Kendall wonders how much cash the studio fronted him ahead of his album release.

James says, “Oh, sure, yeah, come in,” sarcasm dripping from every single word.

“Thanks.” Kendall settles himself on the couch, making a show of getting comfortable. He crosses his arms and says, “I will.”

Reluctantly, James closes the door and follows him. “You found me.”

“It’s not like you legally changed your name.” Kendall squints up at him, afternoon light creating a halo from the floor to ceiling windows that frame James’s living room. “You’re coming up in the world.”

“I do alright.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Is that what you’re looking for? Thanks?” His face bunches into a scowl. Kendall has seen that look on James before, in passing, always lightning quick.

This time, though, it stays.

This is the real James, then, underneath all the charm he laid on back east. Angry. Arrogant. Proud.

“It’s the least you can do, considering.” Kendall props his feet up on a glass-topped coffee table.

James immediately stoops down and smacks at his ankles, trying to bat them away. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“Royalties,” Kendall corrects, refusing to budge. He smirks, meeting James’s gaze and trying not to look like he’s having trouble breathing. “And an apology, probably.”

Shame coils its way around James’s features, but he doesn’t back down. “Please. I took advantage of you the same way you took advantage of me. You wanted sex, and I let you have it-“

“Let me? Who even are you?” Kendall demands aloud, because seriously. This is not the sweet, unassuming guy that dragged him around New York and forced him to be – happy.

James’s face falls. Tentatively, he starts over. “I hurt you.”

“Yeah,” Kendall replies, simmering with rage. “You did.”

Ashamed, James lowers his eyes, but Kendall doesn’t even know if he buys it. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“Then what was?” Kendall demands, getting angrier, despite himself. “I was in love with you.”

At that, James’s head snaps up. “No. You weren’t.”

He says it with conviction.

“Fine,” Kendall agrees, because that’s not the kind of thing you argue with. “Maybe I wasn’t there yet, but I was on my way. I was falling in love with you.”

This time, James laughs. It’s cruel, derisive.

He scolds, “You wanted to fuck me, and you liked my attention, but don’t fool yourself. That isn’t anything like love.”

“Believe what you want.” Kendall sags back into the couch, abruptly weary. This entire conversation feels nothing like closure. “It doesn’t change the fact that you lead me on.”

“I wanted to get to know you.” James hesitates, before adding guiltily, “I wanted you to get to know me.”

“Why?”

“I thought it would make you less mad, when I. When I-“

“Stole my shit?” Kendall provides helpfully. “Guess what? I’m still pretty mad.”

“It was only supposed to be the one date. I was going to leave the next morning. But then you were so…”

“Gullible?”

“Brilliant,” James replies flatly. “You’re an angry, petty douchecanoe. But underneath that, you’re- I like you. Liked,” he corrects, and that doesn’t burn at all.

“I can’t believe you,” Kendall snaps. “You downplayed who you are to get into my pants-“

James seethes, “All you wanted was to get into mine-“

“-you made me fall for you-“

“-not this again, you ridiculous ass, you were never in love. You don’t even know what love is-“

“Fine. Whatever.” Kendall can’t play the wounded warrior. He’s not good at it. “I didn’t come here for you. I came for my music.”

James’s laugh is scathing. “You think, what, that you have any claim to it now?”

“I wrote it!”

“Prove that.” He crosses his arms. “Oh wait, you can’t.”

Kendall is beginning to see red again. “Did it even occur to you that this won’t work out? You’re in trouble.”

“Please. I’m exactly where I want to be. Everyone wants to put their hands all over me.”

“Yeah. Now. With _this_ album.” Kendall holds his head high, proud at least of that. The lauded success of _Jimmy_ is as much his own achievement as it is James’s.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” James asks icily.

And Kendall’s thinking about Hollywood, about all the fakes and the cheats. The ghosts of Rudolph Valentino and Marilyn Monroe roam the hills and canyons, but that’s romantic – it’s the unknowns, the nameless, the never-made-it’s that everyone’s scared of.

Infamy is the only kind of currency anyone’s interested in, even James.

Especially James.

“What about the next one? Or the one after that? You've got more of my songs, sure, but people think you’re self-made. That you wrote all of it. Eventually, you'll run out of material.”

That gets James’s attention. He staggers back a step, his fear evident.

Kendall understands him in this moment. He sees right to the heart of him, his ambition and his lack of faith in himself, determination at odds with a sense of confidence that falters because no one else ever shared it. He knows exactly how to hurt James, now.

He crows, “Fame doesn’t last, _Jim_. Especially not when people find out you’re a fraud.”

James’s knees buckle. He perches on the edge of the couch and says, “Please don’t tell anyone.”

“How can you even ask me that? You have zero shame.”

“I don’t,” James replies softly. “I’ve got nothing except this. It’s been my dream since I was a kid and I was never – _good enough_. But now…people love your songs, Kendall.” Humorlessly, he adds, “I told you that you were talented.”

“I told you that you were too,” Kendall points out, even though he’s not sure why he’s trying to bolster James’s ego more than it already is.

James cuts his eyes towards him, expression going soft, and then he scoots fully onto the couch. Their shoulders bump; the fabric of James’s shirt is soft, warm, weathered.

Kendall recognizes it from New York. It’s probably been through every storm that James has. It’s as threadbare as Kendall’s soul feels.

James says. “I could love you. I could, if you gave me a chance.”

Kendall’s heart kicks out against his chest, every thud painful. “Do you think I’m stupid? You want to use me.”

“Yeah. I do.” James pauses. “I want you to write more songs for me. And I want you to be…here. I mean. I wouldn’t mind. If you stuck around.”

“To write for you.”

“Yes.” James is not the boy he was back home. He is not lying, now. “You’re right. I didn’t think this through. I don’t know if I can make it on my own. And you’re strong. Stronger than I’ve ever been.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Kendall replies darkly.

“Kendall, _please_.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “I can’t do it alone.”

Kendall knows what he’s supposed to say is _fuck off_. He knows the entire point of his coming out to Los Angeles was to shove James’s face in the shit storm he created and walk off, to have the satisfaction of moral superiority and the last laugh.

Instead, when James touches his shoulder, trembling, Kendall feels fragile with hope. It’s not something he’s ever wanted or needed or liked, only it’s not as bad as he imagined it might be. Because for some extremely screwed up reason, he wants James to need him. He wants James to be desperate for his presence. To have something to lord over him.

Or maybe for nobler reasons, still. Kendall thinks about James up on the rooftop, confessing that he’d thought about jumping before. He thinks that was a glimpse of this, the boy sitting next to him now. He wonders what will happen if he turns James down, once the high of his first album ends.

Kendall has this vision in his head of supermarket tabloids touting Jimmy’s obituary.

And then he thinks of a phrase he hasn’t heard in a long time, not since the rehab program back in Minneapolis:

 _The only way out is through_.

If he goes back to New York now, having lorded this small victory of James, all he’s going to have is the memory of him, of the time one more person got the best of Kendall Knight. But if he stays…

Yeah. James isn’t trustworthy. But Kendall can already tell that his rise is going to be meteoric. With Kendall’s help, it can be.

And he knows, instinctively, that if he can survive the betrayal that certainly lies in his future; if he can survive James and his mind games and Hollywood as a whole, there’s an opportunity here. A whole new career, doing something that Kendall is really, really good at.

All that waits for him back in New York is a dead end job and a best friend who is going to grow up and leave him behind, someday. Here, things are a lot more complicated, much more convoluted.

But also, filled with so many more possibilities.

Faith is important, Kendall thinks, remembering Katie’s words.

He doesn’t have faith in James. Not really. But he has faith in himself. Kendall wasn’t strong enough to survive his last crucible, when his dreams crumbled into ash on the ice. He’s older now. He’s better, now.

This won’t be easy, but. Sometimes the only way to escape darkness and pain is to survive it.

“You’re lucky you’ve got a pretty face,” Kendall tells James, softer than he means to be, like he’s buying James’s bullshit.

James sticks out his tongue in an extremely unattractive fashion, but he follows it up with a smile so fond and brilliant that Kendall almost wants to kiss it off his face.

Almost.

The only way out is through.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Boyz Attack, Boyz In The Attic, Boyz Ahoy,” he mumbles out loud. “Have you produced anything musically relevant since before the dinosaurs died out?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm on a BTR kick. So sue me.

Kendall wrinkles his nose at the posters lining Gustavo’s red, padded hallways.

“Boyz Attack, Boyz In The Attic, Boyz Ahoy,” he mumbles out loud. “Have you produced anything musically relevant since before the dinosaurs died out?”

Tomato red with rage, Gustavo’s hands grope outwards, searching out a neck to strangle.

Kendall sidesteps his impending death, snarking, “I’m taking that as a no.”

“Be nice,” Mercedes hisses, but she’s making a face like the words pain her. “I’m trying to do you a favor, here.”

“I didn’t ask for a favor.”

“You’re getting one anyway.” She knocks their shoulders together. “Roommate solidarity.”

Kendall does not tell her that Logan is his roommate, because it doesn’t even make sense. He lives with Mercedes now.

That he misses Logan like crazy isn’t her fault.

“Why did you bring him here?” Gustavo asks despairingly. “I hate him.”

“He hates everyone,” Mercedes assures Kendall.

“I feel that,” Kendall replies, because he is often in a space where stabbing people sounds like an awesomesauce idea. Maybe he and this Rocque character should do some anger management exercises together.

Kendall knows a few, from his time at the clinic.

“Gustavo.” Suddenly, Mercedes’s voice is all business. “Kendall’s an amazing songwriter.”

“I’m an amazing songwriter,” Gustavo retorts, sullen. He crosses his arms, sizing up whether he can take Mercedes down.

She’s wearing really spiky shoes. Kendall doesn’t like his chances.

“You are,” she replies brightly. “But a little help never hurt anybody.”

“It hurts me. Profusely.” Gustavo glares.

Kendall glares back.

“Yes, but,” Mercedes sighs, like the world weighs heavy on her shoulders. Kendall can’t tell if she’s hamming it up for real or if the act is something Gustavo enjoys. “You’re not a young man. It’s time to spread your wings and mentor. Or something. So why not mentor Kendall?”

“Because I hate him,” Gustavo retorts.

“You’re not exactly endearing yourself to me,” Kendall replies easily.

“Wait.” Gustavo stops, footsteps heavy on the red carpet of Rocque Records. “What do you mean, _not a young man_?”

“She means you’re going to die soon, grandpa-oof.” Kendall wheezes, cut off by a well-aimed elbow to his solar plexus.

Mercedes is _scary._

“I mean that you could use an assistant!”

“Uh, what?”

“Uh, what?” Gustavo echoes Kendall’s sentiment, the two of them wearing matching bug-eyes.

“I didn’t sign on to assist anyone,” Kendall protests.

“He’d be an awful assistant!” Gustavo yelps. “Look at him…he’s so…mangy.”

“I’m sorry, did you just imply that I’m a dog?”

“Dogs have better grooming-“

Mercedes whistles. She whistles _loudly_. “Time out, guys. You’re getting distracted from the opportunity presented to us, here.”

“Suicide?” Kendall suggests brightly.

“Zip it,” Mercedes instructs, all the while wearing the sweetest of smiles. “Gustavo, Kendall’s an amazing writer. Give him a chance.”

“He’s untested.”

“I’m not,” Kendall objects.

“He’s not,” Mercedes affirms, beaming with something that is very akin to pride.

Gustavo says, “Kendall Knight, Kendall Knight. Nope, never heard of you. Do you have a record out that I don’t know about?”

“Yeah,” he replies, softly, heaving a sigh. “I wrote every song on Jimmy’s album.”

Gustavo squints at him. He looks Kendall up and down, and then says, “Prove it.”

“I can’t, or my bank account would be a significantly happier place.” Kendall shoves his hands in his pockets. “But I’m working on Ja- um. Jimmy’s second album. I guess.”

He’s still not sure about the fragile truce he worked out with James. It’s been days, and he hasn’t heard a word from the guy outside of a few scattered, cryptic texts about stage makeup and choreography. Kendall didn’t know what to make of them. He didn’t bother replying at all.

“Jimmy,” Gustavo says. “The guy with the _falling, baby, through the sky through the sky_?”

His voice gets very, very pitchy as he butchers Kendall’s song. Kendall winces. “That’s the one.”

“You wrote that bullshit?”

Defensively, he replies, “I was having a moment.”

“Yeah, Hawk forwarded me the demo. You were having a lot of them,” Gustavo says. He’s watching Kendall with renewed interest, like he is somehow more and less than he initially thought. “That explains the sad eyes.”

“I don’t have sad eyes,” Kendall protests, because why do people keep saying that?

Mercedes pats his arm, “Yes, you do honey.”

Resentfully, Kendall says, “Are we done criticizing me, yet?”

Gustavo crosses his arms. “I want a demonstration.”

Gustavo’s already turned a corner, and he’s leading them into what must be his studio. Kendall is saying, “I told you. I can’t prove anything. Ja -er. Jimmy won’t give me credit for my music. Any of it-“ but he trails off when he sees where they are. The red-walled studio is empty of anything other than a massive piano, the wood sleek and black, and the keys begging to be touched.

Kendall is at a loss for words, but Mercedes is already taking over. “This Jimmy sounds like a charmer,” Mercedes says, and anger rumbles like thunder in her voice.

“Him and half this town,” Gustavo agrees. “The demo album hasn’t leaked yet. Play me something from it.”

Kendall opens his mouth.

Kendall closes his mouth.

Smugly, Gustavo says, “Rethinking your claim?”

“No.” That gets him going. Kendall sits at the piano, almost scared to play. It’s been so long since he was able to use an instrument that isn’t the beat up keyboard in Athena’s bar back in New York, or his old, ratty guitar.

Tentatively, he tries out the opening chords of Broadway, Here I Come, his voice rusty from disuse. “ _I’m high above the city. I’m standing on the ledge. The view from here is pretty…and I step off the edge_.”

“Not that one,” Gustavo interrupts. “That song is everywhere. It’s driving me bonkers.”

“Thanks.” Kendall snorts, but obediently switches tunes.

He’s seen the track list for James’s album, and he knows every one of them by heart. But the one that his fingers dance over reminds him of the night he and James first met, of a rooftop a bajillion miles from here, back when he would have done anything for a kiss.

He takes a deep breath, the familiar lyrics welling up in his lungs.

As he sings, he watches Gustavo and Mercedes, wondering if any of this will make any kind of difference.

“ _Listen. I hope that you can hear me, as I kneel down and pray, with the love I meant to say_.”

Kendall can feel them, the words that James stole from him, in his bones and in his blood.

He remembers how he felt when he wrote them, so lost and so found.

He remembers how he felt singing them to an inattentive crowd at the bar, night after night.

And he remembers James’s leonine eyes as he sang these same lyrics back to Kendall. For the first time, he felt like he’d done something profound.

But now?

Fiercely, Kendall thinks that these words are his, that this one last time, they’re his to perform. He rounds off the song so strongly his voice cracks, as he sings, “ _Sorry. That’s the word I want to sing to you. The other word is…stay, to hear the love I meant to say_.”

When he draws the notes to a close, Gustavo’s expression is one hundred percent blank. Mercedes, though. She looks a little choked up.

“You wrote that?”

“Every word.”

She hugs him then, tightly, like he needs it.

Maybe he does, because Kendall clings to her in turn, trying to take what she’s giving and fold it into himself, for later, when he’s feeling alone and broken.

“Sorry,” he tells her. “I’m rusty, and I’ve never…uh. I’m not used to audiences that actually listen.”

“We need to break you of that, sweetie,” Mercedes says, but she’s laughing. It trickles from her throat, melodious. It dances in her eyes. “You’re incredible. Gustavo?”

Gustavo grunts.

“Gustavo?” She prompts, and her voice takes an icy turn.

“I think,” he says. “I think you’re an idiot for letting that moron Jimmy take your music. Do you know they reworked that into a dance anthem?”

Kendall’s eyes widen. He can’t really imagine something he intended as a piano ballad played in clubs, but then again, what does he know about the music industry?

“No,” Gustavo tells him. “Don’t look at me like you’re wondering if that was a good idea. That was a terrible idea, because Hawk has no idea what talent sounds like.” The man pauses mid-tirade, like he’s realized that he almost delivered something like a compliment. “You weren’t terrible.”

“You’re going to have to do better than that,” Kendall tells him, levelly.

Gustavo meets him head on. “I suppose…if you must…if you want it…you can be my assistant.”

Mercedes squeals with delight. And Kendall?

Kendall’s not sure if he must or if he wants it, but he takes the job anyway.

* * *

 

James texts him the day before his album drops.

_Do you want to come over?_

It’s casual, not flirty, or even a little bit suggestive. It still sets Kendall’s heart racing, the same way all those texts James sent back in New York did. There’s a part of him that still thinks this is going somewhere, that they’re not just a business agreement.

That part of him is pathetic, and needs to be crushed, but it exists.

He swallows guilt the entire Uber ride to James’s place; he had a skype date set up with Logan. He’s approaching the end of his promised month in Hollywood too quickly, and he already knows he’s going to stay. The job with Gustavo gives him legitimacy, but even before that, he knew he wasn’t going anywhere.

Not when James has asked for his help.

Kendall isn’t sure how to break the news to Logan, and James’s text is an easy excuse. He’ll feel awful about it later – he feels awful about it now – but that’s a problem for future Kendall. Current Kendall is just glad he doesn’t have to sneak past the doorman to James’s place, this time; he’s a real invited guest.

He’s not sure how great the invitation is when he opens the front door to James’s apartment to find him in a sleek, silvery, purplish top that wouldn’t have been out of place on Liberace.

“Don’t I look _fabulous_?”

Kendall opens his mouth. He looks at the shirt. He looks at James’s face. He frowns at the seamstress, pinning James’s bits and parts.

“That’s a word for it.”

“Other words for it are magnificent, stunning, and fantastic,” James agrees. He spreads his arms wide. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m…” Kendall tries to find an adjective describe what he’s feeling, and he settles on, “Blinded by your shirt, honestly.”

“Spoilsport,” James says. He tells the seamstress, “Ignore him,” and then he bats her away. “I want to show you something.”

“Yes. The shirt. I saw.”

“Not that.” James beckons Kendall out, onto the balcony of his apartment. “Look at this.”

“It’s…nice,” Kendall says, because okay, it’s a balcony overlooking Hollywood. Which is very…well, not New York.

The city glows purple in the setting sun, the outline of foothills distant and menacing. Below, the streets are a mess of headlights and taillights, everyone rushing to get somewhere else, driving too fast with their windows rolled tight against the smog and the exhaust and the last rays of sunshine.

“Not that.” James waves the view away, and pulls Kendall to his side. “This. Me.”

“You’re very…James?”

Kendall feels like he’s taking a pop quiz, but James doesn’t even notice. He stands outlined by the city lights that are so different than New York – hues of green and blue and indigo one shade off and very wrong. He stares out into the distance and says, “No, I’m not. Not anymore. Things are happening.”

“Just like you wanted.”

“Just like I wanted,” James agrees.

He doesn’t stop searching the skyline for something Kendall can’t quite see. He gets the sense that whatever it is is looming, there on the horizon, just out of James’s reach.

And abruptly, Kendall doesn’t want him to get it. He knows that you can’t keep someone who doesn’t want to be kept, and that James was never his to begin with, but he also knows that it won’t stop him from trying to…to pull him back, he guesses.

Kendall touches James’s elbow and says, “Hey. Don’t be Jimmy right now. Please?”

James’s fingers come up to overlap his. There’s the twine of their hands, accidental at first, then less so, a slow, purposeful slide.

It gets him hard, which is a problem, but Kendall ignores it.

“There’s a release party,” James says. “I want you to come.”

“Why?” Kendall asks, and he’s asking it honestly, because there is a weight to this solicitation. It’s not something Kendall entirely understands, but he knows that if he accompanies James to one industry shindig, he’s going to end up going to more of them, and to concerts and live events. He’s going to be James’s entourage of one, and that’s…not something he knows if he’s willing to accept. “I’m no one.”

“Please. We both know that’s not true.” James pauses. “It’s free champagne and connections galore, and I, just…I don’t want to go alone.”

Kendall swallows. “Is Jimmy allowed to be scared?”

James squeezes Kendall’s fingers, tightly. He sways in, almost like he wants a kiss. Kendall swerves, turning to face sundown over the Hollywood hills.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the way James winces. He murmurs, “You asked me not to be Jimmy right now. _Please_ , Kendall.”

Their fingers stay linked, loosely, a tether that Kendall can’t quite seem to cut.

He says, “We’re high above the city.”

James catches on almost immediately. He replies, “We’re standing on the ledge.”

Kendall continues, ever so quietly, “The view from here is pretty.”

James lifts Kendall’s hand to his lips. He brushes his mouth against each of Kendall’s knuckles in turn, and it’s a dirty trick, because they both know it’s not real.

It does Kendall in anyway.

James says, “Step off the edge with me, Kendall. Please.”

“Okay,” Kendall replies, and the lights and the noise and the traffic stretch out before him, all of it as distant and foreign as the adrenaline pumping through his veins. Because this, agreeing to what James is asking, feels like stepping onto the ice after all his years away. It feels like every time he sat on that creaky bar stage back home and tried to get his voice heard. It feels exactly like the song, like stepping off the edge.

And still, Kendall says, “Okay.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the good-looking aspiring actors aren’t quite as silvered for the screen. Fame is the added ingredient, what takes a person from not-hideous to otherworldly, and James, dead center, has it in spades.

“I hate the smell of men’s cologne,” Mercedes tells him from her perch on his bed. “It’s like you spray it on to get us wet, and it either works or it crosses the border into revolting.”

“Well.” Kendall does not know what to say to that. He repeats, “Well.”

“Close your mouth, snookums.” Mercedes props her fingers under his jaw, shutting it so gently that Kendall’s teeth do not click. “You look like a fish.”

“A party-ready fish?” Kendall inquires, spreading his arms wide.

Mercedes sniffs. “I’m not impressed.”

“Then help me,” Kendall pleads. “I have no idea what to wear to this launch thing, and honestly I don’t give a fuck, but Ja- er. Jimmy said he won’t let me through the door if I look like a scrub.”

“People still say scrub?”

“Apparently. Come on, Mercedes. Please?”

Mercedes frowns at him. “I don’t know that there’s any helping you, Knight.”

“Please,” he wheedles, trying on his best puppy dog pout. “Pretty please?”

The growl she emits is pretty intimidating, but she relents. “Fine. Fine, let me look at this disaster area you call a closet, and isn’t cleanliness part of your rental agreement?”

“I’ll clean later. Cross my heart and hope not to be viciously murdered.”

“They’d never find your body,” Mercedes advises. “You’re vibrating.”

“What?”

“Your phone.” Mercedes makes a face at his bedside table. Then she snatches up his phone and waves it in the air. “Ooh, who’s Logan?”

“My roommate,” Kendall makes a face. Then, immediately realizing his mistake, he amends, “My old roommate, I mean.”

“You don’t sound too sure about that.”

“I haven’t told him that I’m staying in LA,” Kendall replies flatly. He doesn’t try to grab for his phone, and Mercedes doesn’t move to answer it. “I don’t know how to.”

“But you had no problem asking me to extend your lease. You’re all class, Knight.” She puts his phone back down and starts towards his closet. “Let’s see what we have to work with.”

Kendall bites his lower lip. He’s got to call back. Mercedes is right – dragging this out forever is trashy. It’s not what you do to your best friend in the whole wide world. He thumbs over the call button before he can second guess himself.

One ring.

Two.

“Kendall? Kendall!” Logan exclaims. There’s noise in the background. A bar – maybe Athena’s, where Kendall used to work. “Done avoiding me?”

“What?” Kendall’s voice pitches high. “I haven’t been- _avoiding_ you.”

“Sure. Right. So when are you coming home?”

Kendall is quiet.

“Kendall?” Logan asks. “When are you coming home? Kendall?”

“Oh – I can’t hear you. Sorry, Loganator, I think I’m going through an, uh, underpass, and-“ He hisses into the phone, trying to imitate static. “I’ll catch you later, yeah?”

“ _Kendall_!”

Mercedes looks at him critically. “You can be a real dick, you know that?”

“You’re not the first person to say it.” Kendall sighs. “Find anything?”

“Yeah, I found out your wardrobe is a travesty.” Mercedes waves a shirt in the air. “Come over here and let me see how awful this looks on you.”

Being dressed by Mercedes is only marginally humiliating.

“Could you at least leave the room?”

“Relax. You’re gay. And not my type.”

“I’m bi,” Kendall objects.

“I’m not,” she replies simply, and suddenly Kendall gets why she needed a fake boyfriend for her dad.

That’s…unexpected, to say the least.

“Do you have…anyone special?”

“For fuck’s sake, this isn’t an episode of the Bachelorette. Put this on.”

He does, obediently climbing into clothes that are slick – but not too slick – and will be trendy three weeks from now, Mercedes promises.

“Always be cutting edge if you can help it.”

When he’s done, she ruffles his hair, more critically than affectionate, tells him he’ll do, and then shoves him into an Uber he didn’t even see her call. It’s a journey.

Kendall’s starting to sense that everything with Mercedes is.

The ride is short, but James is inside by the time Kendall’s driver pulls up to the venue. His inner New Yorker wants to tip, but he stops himself before reaching for his wallet. It’s not like he has cash to spare anyway.

He bounds onto the concrete and stops This thing has a bouncer. This thing’s got a _line_.

It’s fucking surreal, thinking that anyone would queue up to listen to Kendall’s songs, but hell, James makes everything sound good. He slinks to the front of the line and half-hopes he’s not on the list. That he’ll be shamed into going home and watching HGTV with Mercedes in his ratty PJs.

No such luck. James didn’t fail him this time.

The bouncer pulls back a crushed velvet rope – how bougie can you get – and Kendall can feel eyes on his back as he walks inside.

There’s an elevator up to the Penthouse lounge, and the roof, because it’s not a Hollywood party if there’s no option to skinny dip, apparently. Kendall squares his shoulders on the way up, prepared to be entirely unimpressed.

And he is, honestly.

Everything fake about LA keeps on getting old. This party is no different. It’s populated by an even mix of unnaturally pretty people; some young and glowing with confidence, some aging so gracefully that he can’t not suspect surgery. And there, on the fringes, are the people like him. The extras and plus ones and wannabes who are just that much grittier.

Even the good-looking aspiring actors aren’t quite as silvered for the screen. Fame is the added ingredient, what takes a person from not-hideous to otherworldly, and James, dead center, has it in spades.

“Man.” He waves at Kendall, a pure, unadulterated joy on his face. “I didn’t think you’d make it.”

“And miss all this?” Kendall asks, like it’s scripted. “That’d be tragic.”

James laughs, high and almost braying. He’s already drunk. But oh, how he sparkles.

“Come on. I want you to meet my team.”

Weird how it didn’t occur to Kendall that there’s a team, that James didn’t just push the music out into the universe through sheer willpower alone.

He nods his assent, and follows James’s slow saunter. He checks out James’s ass, but hell, everyone at the party is checking out James’s ass. Besides, Hollywood is laid out ahead of them, dusky and sensuous.

The air is laced with the scents of chlorine and smog, that concrete and dust tang that Kendall hasn’t stopped smelling since he came here. Other things too; random whiffs of crushed flowers. Jacaranda. Sagebrush. Eucalyptus and verbena. Grass too. They’re constantly watering and cutting grass around here. Like they’ve never heard there’s a drought.

And then there’s the berry smells of the mixology bar, the stale stench of low fat beer on people’s breath. Everything’s intoxicating, vying for his attention. He misses that New York perfume, the piss and rust reek of the subway, the metal taste of skyscrapers and industrialization.

But it’s fleeting. James exclaims, “My man!” and startles Kendall from it, pulls him into an introduction with somebody who matters.

Probably. Maybe.

This is Hollywood. Everyone matters and everyone doesn’t.

It all begins to blur after the first five minutes, face after face flashing by with too-sharp teeth. Griffin’s there, schmoozing with some leggy brunette who is definitely not Kendall’s baby sister. Kendall is over halfway across the room before common sense takes over and he remembers that Katie would castrate him for getting involved in something that is _none of his business_. He can practically hear her grinding her teeth.

So he follows James like a doting lapdog, meeting scruffy sound techs who skirt the edge of the roof, acting like the nonentities they are, to the prettier, shinier people, who congregate at the center.

Near the sparkling edge of the pool, under that indigo blanket of LA night sky, Kendall meets Lucy Stone, a thin, razor-eyed girl brimming with energy. Lucy’s debut record drops in three weeks, James explains with a sniff.

She’s his label-mate, but he treats her like she’s his rival. 

Lucy doesn’t seem to mind. Her face is tinted blue with moonlight and the eerie, rippling glow of the water. Her lips curve into a blood red smile.

“Kendall,” she says, tasting his name. “And what do you do?”

“Nothing,” Kendall replies, too quick and too honest. “Nothing at all.”

“He’s my muse,” James corrects, and that’s a word for it, if not an accurate one. James wraps an arm around Kendall’s shoulders, close and possessive.

He’s been sticking to Kendall’s hip since he arrived – only now does Kendall wonder if it’s because James is nervous.

“Lucky guy,” Lucy says. She doesn’t clarify whether she means Kendall or James, but Kendall can feel the weight of her gaze on his spine when James leads him away.

Gustavo's next, and he frowns through their entire bumbling intro. James is meeting him for the first time. He’s bubbly, excited – Rocque produces Zwagger, after all – and Kendall watches his face fall with an intense shock of anger when Gustavo retorts, “I don’t _care_.”

“You could try being polite,” Kendall snaps, getting up in his face, pay check be damned.

Protectiveness is his instinct. He doesn’t stop to think about whether or not James deserves it.

Gustavo scowls, “To some one hit wonder and his no-name lackey?”

He's fucking with Kendall - it's there in the tilt of his frown. Almost a smirk. Kendall hasn't even worked for the guy for more than a week, but he can see it. And still, he sees red. His music is good, and he’s no lackey.

“At least James doesn’t need to wear beanie babies to make people pay attention. Must be what happens when the music speaks for itself.”

Gustavo splutters, “I have fifteen gold records.”

“Right,” Kendall agrees. “Any from this century?”

The rotund man is crimson-faced and James is horrified, but Gustavo also gives Kendall a good-natured eye roll before they walk away, so. Hollywood is weird.

It’s not the strangest encounter Kendall has that night. That honor goes to Kelly, James’s agent.

She used to be Gustavo’s PA, she tells James soothingly when he runs along to tattle. “…and that man wouldn’t know talent if it punched him in the face.”

Kendall gets the sense she’s tried.

She runs her fingers through James’s hair, an oddly intimate gesture. Or at least, it’s odd until Kelly turns into James and plants a kiss smack on his lips. Then it makes perfect sense.

Did James began sleeping with her before or after she became his agent?

Kendall won’t ask. His pride won’t let him. But the narcissistic part of Kendall wants it to be after. He did just tell his boss (yet again) that Jimmy’s music (Kendall’s music) stands on its own two feet. He hates to be a liar.

Kendall’s thinking about that while James indulges in the kiss long enough for it to grow grossly uncomfortable, and he’s still thinking about it when he makes the executive decision to back slowly away, towards the appetizer table. That’s when the two draw apart with an audible pop.

Scritching her nails along James’s scalp, Kelly asks, “Who’s this?”

“Oh,” James says, blinking. He’s forgotten Kendall is there, probably. That’s. Not fine, but Kendall purses his lips and rolls with it. “This is Kendall.”

“Kendall,” Kelly purrs. She folds herself back into the poolside sofa, the slick white leather bleeding around the edges of her jewel-toned power suit. Even looking up at him, it feels like she’s looking down her nose. “Pleasure.”

“Sure,” Kendall replies. “You sure have a way with your clients.”

James winces.

Kelly laughs. “I’m a talent scout. Jimmy’s talented at a lot of things.”

“And what do you do with talent?” Kendall inquires, throat dry.

“Polish them ‘til they shine.” Kelly stares at him, her eyes dark, shiny beads set against the soft curve of her cheeks. She watches him with a strange mixture of pity, kindness, and that jaded, practical surety that nearly everyone in Hollywood seems to carry. “But that’s not what you’re asking.”

He’s not going to ask this woman if she’s sleeping with James, because that’s fairly obvious. But Kelly takes his silence like he did. She shrugs, draping her arms across the back of the sofa. “Is there a reason this bothers you?”

Kendall grits his teeth. He crushes the impulse to lash out where it stands, because she’s smug and she’s pretty, and if he made a scene here, she’d have security kick him out in half a second.

He glances at James through the cover of his eyelashes, blurring him golden and vague, until he’s a complete and utter stranger.

He always has been, really.

Kendall tells Kelly, “No. I can’t think of a single one.”

“You’re wound pretty tight,” she observes, her slick lips curling into a grin. “Let me introduce you to some people.”

“Sure. People,” Kendall agrees dully, placing so much bitterness on the second word that Kelly flinches away. Why? She already knows what he’s always suspected; everybody in this goddamned city is made of plastic. “I think I’m done with this party.”

“Kendall,” James protests.

Kendall swivels on his heels and makes toward the exit. But Griffin catches him on his way out. “You!”

James is at Kendall’s heels. He skids to a stop at this exchange, hisses, “You know Arthur Griffin?”

“Hi,” Kendall replies tiredly. “You ditched your date.”

“Her?” Griffin’s gaze nets out over the party, searching for the blonde and dismissing her just as quickly. “She’s no one. How’s my daughter?”

Kendall side steps that question, because nope. “Have you met Jimmy?”

“Jimmy? Right, right, the new star. You’ve got it all, baby,” Griffin says with a sleazy smile, appraising James at Kendall’s back. “That old-time starshine, a chanteuse smile and the boy band body. Trust me, you ever want to drop your studio and I’ll make you number one.”

James leans in close to Kendall and asks, “What did he just call me?”

Kendall can see it, the come-hither grin on James’s lips forever at odds with the broad splay of his shoulders and the muscle corded in his neck.

His neck is still red from the light play of Kelly’s nails. “You should ask him.”

He waves Griffin off and starts back toward the elevator, and he couldn’t even say whether he wants James to chase him or not. But it’s still some kind of relief when James does, when James’s strong hands catch at his shoulders and he breathes Kendall’s name hot into his neck.

They’re not dating, they’re not even close to dating, but James said he could love Kendall, and maybe Kendall is hoping he can.

Maybe that’s why everything hurts so damn much.

“Please don’t go,” James asks.

So Kendall doesn’t.

* * *

 

In the pale light of the early morning, James loops an arm around Kendall’s middle and tugs him, stumbling, toward the elevator.

Hungry eyes watch them as they go – Kelly’s, perhaps, cold and assessing. Lucy Stone’s, curious and sharp. Gustavo Rocque’s, for reasons Kendall doesn’t want to guess at, but really hopes don't impact his bank account.

And others, too. Others, who want to touch James, his hand, his knee, the angles of his cheekbones; grab some of that star power for themselves.

It’s a sea of sharks, but James swims through it, keeps Kendall buoyed through it.

Then they’re on the street, footsteps slapping asphalt.

In a cab, the Uber driver singing at the top of his lungs to Top 40s hits, and Kendall only registers that he’s not going home when they pull up to the sterile prettiness of James’s place.

On the stairs, because the elevator took too long, and they’re industrial and ugly, concrete steps taken two at a time. James is laughing, trying to race him up, shoving and pushing and his hands crinkling up in the shirt Mercedes dressed Kendall in. They’re kissing on the platform for the second floor, sloppy and drunk, nearly cartwheeling over the next few steps.

James gets handsy the further up they go, his fingers deftly unbuckling the front of Kendall’s pants. They’re nearly around his thighs by the time they make it into James’s apartments, all windows and the weak sunlight of an LA morning, filtered through gray that will dissipate as the day grows stronger.

James has a hard grip on his hips, he’s biting, he’s sucking, he’s turning Kendall over and mouthing along the notches of his spine. He tells Kendall to stop wiggling, slaps his ass with just enough force that it stings and feels good at exactly the same time. Kendall makes this mewling noise that would be embarrassing if he wasn’t desperate for it, desperate for the elastic slap of latex ringing in his ears, the heavy, hot pressure of James nudging against him.

He’s not as generous with the lube as he could be, but Kendall’s had enough to drink that the edge is off when James eases inside of him. James’s dick catches when he tries to fully seat himself, but it’s only for a second, and the sound that erupts from Kendall’s throat seems to make him ten times harder.

The sex is rough and messy, and Kendall makes James sing for it – just because he’s bottoming doesn’t mean he’s not in control. He only lets go when he’s got James begging, high and gorgeous, mouth wet against the nape of Kendall’s neck as he murmurs, “Please, please, _please_ …”

Kendall rough knuckles his own cock, tight and fast, bucks back against James and takes it when he comes.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ETA: Oops I've been a little overwhelmed and left in a bit about Gustavo meeting Kendall again. I've fixed that - it was part of the original draft that I forgot to erase.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James notices the way he stops in his tracks. He smirks. “How do you feel about perfection now?”
> 
> He’s part fantasy boy studded with stars, part warm and spicy and so real it hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The problem with writing chapters so sporadically and in pieces is I forget what I wrote. Thus, mistakes. I pulled a line from an earlier chapter and put it here because it was out of order, I made some minor fixes throughout. Sorry if that throws off the reading!

A tumble of starlight and James’s roving hands, and the thunder Kendall feels in his bones when their hips collide; that’s how his first real Hollywood party goes.

And his second.

And his third.

Turns out, half the job of being famous involves parties.

And James? James is really great at doing parties.

Oh, but that’s not quite right. James isn’t himself when he’s out. He refines his image a bit. James gives Jimmy a _persona_.

Here’s one of the carefully crafted characteristics Jimmy develops over the next few weeks:

Jimmy never smiles unless he’s performing. Not for the press. Not during interviews. Not even signing autographs. He’s got this whole enigmatic diva thing going on that the fans go gaga for.

That’s what Rolling Stone says, anyway. Kendall mostly thinks that Jimmy looks like he has zero personality, but clearly the rest of Jimmy’s flock disagrees. They can’t keep away from him, from the black hole of his magnetism. All Kendall can do is stand back and be decisively not jealous.

That can’t be what his constant, low, simmering anger is. He’s not the kind of guy who does jealousy, right?

Besides, he knows something that the fans don’t – James, the real James, smiles all the time.

When he comes off his first concert, bounding off the stage and straight into Kendall’s arms, he glows. He weaves sparkling threads between himself and other people, tugs on their heart strings, makes them hate and love in equal measure. He spins their heads and steals their breath, and even when they can’t stand how deeply they feel, they’re still transfixed. Kendall’s no different, in the face of that brilliant, heated grin; the one that James saves, only for him.

“Was I good?” James asks, that first time. (He’ll ask it every time after, too).

“You know you were.”

James nods, eager and happy, accepting the praise as though it’s his due. It turns Kendall’s happiness sour, but only briefly, because then James inquires, “Did I inspire you?”

“I thought I was _your_ muse.”

“Who do you think I’m singing to?”

It’s heart-meltingly mushy. Kendall ducks his head to hide how much he’s basking in it. He takes James home and fucks him, slowly, this push-pull of their bodies that makes James cry out.

A song, only for the two of them, with no stolen lyrics or lies.

Things keep going that way, week after week, day after day. A month seeps by, drenched in slow west coast heat and the slick press of James’s body against his, with the occasional punctuation of Gustavo, yelling, or Mercedes’s taunting drawl.

Kendall twinges with guilt every time he sees Logan’s name on his missed call list, or Kelly’s on James’s, but who cares? This is what they mean by California dreaming.

The thing about dreams, though, is how quickly they shift into nightmares.

* * *

 

In the quiet of his apartment, James stands at the windows and watches the LA traffic blaze by, streaks of light and muted sound. His album has been out for two months. It was well-received. Hell, he’s about to go on a real, live, North American tour, and Kendall wants to ask, to beg, to come with him, but something in James’s posture stops him, every time.

James says, “So, do you have a song?”

The same question he asks after every local concert, but this time, there’s no mirth in it. There’s no smile. He might as well be Jimmy.

Kendall examines the curve of his own wrists, the way his veins are bluer in the indigo dark. “This really matters to you, doesn’t it?”

“I want to be perfect.”

This again.

Kendall snorts, hot air that he almost chokes on and a memory of New York City looming nostalgic in his mind. “Perfection is overrated, James.”

“Jimmy,” James corrects, standing straighter than the Chrysler Building, and the word sounds a bit like a curse, snappish and brusque. “Zwagger keeps matching me in the charts.”

“You like Zwagger,” Kendall points out. He’s gazing at his nails now, square and blunt. Less dirty than they used to be, now that he’s no longer tending bar.

Mercedes makes him go for manicures sometimes, too, her overbearing presence bettering him despite himself. He thinks about her, and wonders what she’s up to, and whether he can bounce, get out of here, away from everything James wants.

James’s glower weighs on Kendall, like he knows that he wants out of this conversation. “I used to like him. He’s cockblocking my way to the top.”

“Well, _Jim_.” Kendall spreads his arms across the back of the couch. For a fleeting moment, the incredible softness makes him miss his apartment back in the city, his own couch threadbare and uncomfortable and usually full of Logan. But he ignores it, chances a look up. James’s silhouette is dark, ghostly. “You’re still pretty new on the scene. Zwagger’s tried and true. What are you going to do about that?”

“I need a new song.”

“Right.” He kicks his heels up on James’s brand spanking new coffee table. They tried to have sex on it once, last week, but the legs were unsteady. They wobbled and shook. “About?”

James bares his teeth. “Aren’t all the best songs about love?”

Kendall’s got one in mind. But.

He tastes acid in his mouth, swallows the acerbic guilt down. “I meant to tell you. I…I’m working for Gustavo. Rocque. He knows I’m working with you, but…I’m also supposed to be writing songs…well, for him.”

The downturn of James’s mouth is all the warning Kendall gets, and then his fingers are gripping tight below Kendall’s collarbone, a press of skin that is going to bruise blue-and-green.

“Why would you do that? I thought you were staying for me?”

“The fuck? I _am_ staying for you!” Kendall wrenches himself free, outraged, and scoots across the couch, away from James’s towering bulk. With that little bit of space, he finds his breath. “I need money to live.”

“I can pay you.”

“No, you can’t, because I’m not a hooker.” Kendall sighs. He pushes his palm against his forehead, a headache building there. He wishes, vaguely, for something to stop it, but he’s not really feeling the pharmaceutical game these days. Not even aspirin.

James frowns. Tentatively, he says, “Are you saving the best ones for me?”

“The best songs?”

James nods.

Kendall sighs again. He wasn’t ready for this. Not tonight. He was hoping he could put it off for another few months, at least.

Reluctantly, he asks, “Do you have a guitar?”

James has three.

They’re all pristine. He probably doesn’t even play them.

Kendall picks up the shiniest, a newer Fender, and strums his fingers over the strings. The melody is easy and hopeful if not raw at the edges. “How does this sound?”

“That’s pretty,” James says, humming along. His temper tantrum has dissipated, as if it never existed at all. “Are there lyrics?”

Kendall pauses, and then tries roughly, “ _I thought I was hopeless, I thought I was broken…”_

He misses a chord. Stops. Tunes the guitar for one long, stretched-thin moment. His head is swimming with words, loose thoughts that he hasn’t really strung together until now. But James is waiting.

He takes a deep breath, “… _I struggled to laugh when the whole room was joking. I’d wait in the cold, but the door wouldn’t open ‘til- I heard your voice in a dream…_ ”

James watches him, leonine eyes glittering. “Is that one for Gustavo?”

“It’s for you, idiot. It’s _about_ you.”

It is.

For him, James exists in goose bumps and nerve endings, in the rapid-fire drag of oxygen through his lungs. James is a flame, flickering dead center in Kendall’s chest. He never stops. Kendall had to put that on paper, the messy affection and the searing taste of all that rage.  

James clicks his tongue. “You wrote me a love song.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Kendall asks, awkward. Even with Jimmy’s rave reviews, even with the growing critical acclaim, and even with Gustavo’s guidance, he still feels like an imposter.

“I want to be better than Zwagger,” James says, and it’s not the reassurance that Kendall’s looking for. “Is there more?”

“Not yet.” He slumps back into the couch, the guitar slumping into his lap with a low thrum. “You’ve got a complex.”

“I don’t.” James laughs. It’s forced, speculative. Like he’s thinking more carefully about what he says than he ever has before. “Do you ever just get in the mood?”

“Depends what mood you mean,” Kendall says, daring to kick James’s ankle lightly. He wasn’t scared of James’s scary face, but he also isn’t in a rush to be reintroduced.

“The mood to like, I don’t know, destroy another human being.”

“Strangely enough, the murder-mood rarely strikes here.”

“Not what I meant.” James peers up at Kendall from beneath his coal black eyelashes, steady, focus sharp. “I want to prove I’m better. Than anyone. Even if it means taking someone else down to do it.”

He’s sincere. Kendall can see that desperation burning at his core. Carefully, he says, “In anger management, they taught that doing that – the thing you said, doesn’t prove anything at all.”

“Anger management turned you into a quitter.”

“Hey.” Kendall rolls on top of James, smothering him with the full weight of his body, but James takes it, easy, like Kendall weighs less than a feather. The two of them sink into the couch. “So you want to take down Zwagger, Princess?”

James nips at Kendall’s lower lip, sucks it into his mouth and bites it raw, red, sweet. He says, “Yes. Please.”

His eyes burn dark and dangerous.

How can Kendall say no to that?

“Then let’s take him down.”

“You mean it?”

“I meant it. Where do we start?”

“The song needs more lyrics.”

“No shit.”

James palms a hand over the front of Kendall’s jeans, heavy and hot against his cock. “I need you.”

He doesn’t mean it the way Kendall wants to take it. He doesn’t mean that he owes Kendall everything. But he does, he will. They’ll make Jimmy into a superstar, and it’ll be because of Kendall’s songs, the tunes he spins together from thin air and nightmares, from remembered kisses and the vibrant, too-real way that he feels. That he’s always felt.

He arches against James’s fingers, lets him unzip the front of his jeans and palm over his skin. He lets James take him apart in gradual strokes, until he’s moaning for it, for more, for anything.

James gets lube, but he isn’t gentle. He drapes Kendall’s legs over his shoulders and works him open perfunctorily, a side event to the main show. And, with Kendall’s jeans still dangling around one ankle, James pushes into him, opens him wide and slightly agonizing.

They do this more often than they don’t, but Kendall still makes a breathy, rasped groan every time he feels the head of James’s dick stretching him wide. He still aches, a low-key pain, until he can feel the wiry bristle of James’s hair, the base of him fitted tight against Kendall’s ass. That’s when it turns into something else, something better:

When James is so far inside of him that Kendall can barely remember his own name.

* * *

 

 _“So, sing to me and I will forgive you, for taking my heart in the suitcase you packed…Sing to me like the lights didn’t blind you, like you blinded me, when I heard your voice in a dream_ ,” Kendall takes a deep breath, trying to work out the next line.

“That’s pretty. Gustavo cracking the whip?” Kendall startles, surprised he didn’t at least catch a whiff of Mercedes’s pungent perfume before she came in the room. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I can be sneaky.”

“I didn’t even hear you.”

“I’m training to be an assassin.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“I know.” She clicks her tongue, satisfied. “So, Zwagger going to be trotting that one out soon?”

“Erm. Not Zwagger.”

“Riiiiight. Jimmy.” Calculating, she says, “Does Gustavo know you’re working for the enemy on his time?”

Mouth curling with displeasure, Kendall spins in his ergonomic studio chair. “Gustavo’s at lunch.”

“What. A. Rulebreaker.” Mercedes perches on the edge of Kendall’s desk, because he has one, for the first time in his adult life. Having a career that’s got room for growth and a city view is strange.

“I don’t suppose you brought me coffee?” He asks hopefully.

“I don’t think you understand how this relationship works.”

“By the grace of caffeine and your goodwill?”

“You bring me coffee, and I continue not to suffocate you in your sleep.”

Kendall thinks about that. “I’m a light sleeper.”

She swats at him. He dodges, sets the fancy chair spinning. He’s got the reflexes of a tiger. Or something.

“So why are you here?”

“I’m looking for Daddy. He’s screening my calls.”

“The nerve of that man.”

“Speaking of.”

“Your father?”

“No, of screening calls. Your friend Logan called.”

“How’d he get your number?”

She shrugs, taking a sip of her latte.

“I assumed you gave it to him. No? He’s crafty.” The sun catches her hair when she tilts her head, burning bright red against the garishly painted walls. Shrewdly, she cuts her gaze out the window and switches topics. “It’s time I meet him, isn’t it?”

Kendall stares down at his composition notebook. The words for the song are scribbled illegibly, everywhere. Even the margins. His creative process has never been organized. “Logan?”

“Jimmy.”

“You asking for backstage passes?”

“What about drinks?”

“Wasn’t dinner with your dad awkward enough?”

“I thought it went spiffingly. I should meet the guy you’re in love with.”

Kendall balks at that, his fingers curling into fists and a knot in his throat. “I’m not.”

“Not what?”

“Not _that_. Falling in love is too much work.”

Mercedes is giving him a vicious side-eye. She doesn’t believe him at all, so Kendall adds, “Besides, Jimmy says I don’t know what love is.”

“You’re making me sad. Seriously. I need Cymbalta to listen to this shit.” Mercedes boggles her eyes at Kendall, disbelief evident. Like how could you fall for this, hook, line, and sinker?

Kendall replies, “Most of the time I think he’s right.”

“Just because you’re not lying doesn’t mean you’re telling the truth,” Mercedes says sharply. She sniffs, “Fine. Hide him away. Your sister came by last night.”

“What?”

“Katie. Skinny. Ye tall.” She holds up a hand to indicate Katie’s height. “Bizarrely high heels?”

“Why did Katie come by?”

Mercedes stares. “She thought we could get facials together.” Then she slaps his head, lightly. “Why the eff do you think, doofus? Called her lately?”

Kendall hasn’t called anyone lately. He rubs away the sting of her fingernails and says, “Did she say…uh, anything?”

“She said you should call her. Then some stuff about my dad.” Katie shudders. “Oh, and you haven’t asked what he said.”

“Who?” Kendall is barely following her. He’s already back in the song, puzzling out the next line. He grabs for her coffee, but she holds it up and away. “Jimmy?”

“Logan. He’s coming to visit.”

“Logan…wait, what?”

* * *

 

Kendall goes to James with half a song clutched in his hand and a face that’s trying its damndest not to look distraught.

What he wants most, right now, is someone to talk to.

He used to tell Logan everything, right up until he noticed all the messy feelings being directed his way. After that, it felt like he was giving Logan unfair insight into his brain, knowledge that could be used against him, or make Logan think that he was special in learning it.

It’s not fair of him to talk to Katie, who is so young and bright and burning for a future that Kendall doesn’t want to drag down. His mom’s out for the same reasons – she’s got her own problems, and doesn’t need to hear about the darkness that lives in her son’s soul.

Mercedes offered him an ear, but she’s new. Untested.

James makes it easy in a way it never has been, his interest earnest, his support unending, if not bought with songs and inspiration. Even when Kendall says things that are overtly wrong, James tends to nod along and agree, willing to back him up, no matter what, as long as he keeps the lyrics coming.

So he plans on talking to James about Logan, getting something out of this unevenly pitched relationship of theirs.

He plans on it, until he walks through the front door of James’s apartment and finds the man himself, in a pair of boxer briefs and little else.

Kendall’s mouth goes dry, the fading sunset silhouetting James with fire, haloing him with newly bright stars.

James notices the way he stops in his tracks. He smirks. “How do you feel about perfection now?”

He’s part fantasy boy studded with stars, part warm and spicy and so real it hurts.

Kendall can’t help it. He drops the song, and ropes his arms around James’s neck, pulls him down for a hot, messy kiss. He murmurs, “I think you’re getting closer.”

Then he pulls back, “Why do you smell like perfume?”

“It’s cologne.”

“Always a liar, huh?” Kendall takes a deep breath, the inhale exhale not as calming as he needs it to be, spiked with a whiff of floral-sweet. He thinks of what Mercedes said, of James and of love. “Where do we stand? I need you to tell me, James. You said you could love me, but did you mean it? Are you into me, or not?”

“I’m into you. I meant it.”

“But you’re into Kelly.”

“She’s cool.”

“What does that mean?”

James shifts uncomfortably. “Does it have to mean anything?”

“I can’t take this back and forth. Answer the damn question.”

“I like what we have going,” James says evasively. “Why can’t we give it time to simmer? Why do we have to give it a label?”

Like love, he means. Why mess up good sex?

Kendall tastes those words like blood on his teeth, because Mercedes isn’t wrong. He’s falling for James. It started out slow, but now he’s at a run, falling deeper and deeper; and he’s completely out of his depth, with all of this.

But he can’t stop, and who can even blame him?

James is storm tossed waves, a living, breathing lightning storm. He pins Kendall with a look, even as he hurts his heart, pins him with a look and with hands, and presses their mouths softly together like it will make him forget what they were arguing about.

Kendall kisses back, helplessly.

He knows he’s making bad choices. Loving James is like staring at the sun. Kendall is going blind to everything else. And he’s going to have to deal with the consequences sooner, rather than later.

But sooner isn’t now.

He lets James grab his ass, pull him close. He lets James strip off his shirt and back him into the bedroom. It smells like Kelly, but Kendall can’t even care. He tastes her on his mouth and on James’s cock, and he swallows it down anyway.

“Fuck me?” James asks, earnest and sweet. He doesn’t ask for Kendall’s forgiveness.

He makes sure Kendall forgets he has anything to forgive him for.


End file.
